Market Research - Tips & Ideas

The tremendous clutter of 21st Century
communication creates unique challenges in being heard above the noise
when attempting to gather market research data. This is especially true
when attempting to gather data via telephone surveying and/or email
surveying on a stand-alone basis. For traditional telephone surveying,
advanced voicemail and caller ID technologies have significantly
reduced the percentage of connected market survey calls.

And when calls are connected, the modern work environment - highly
(and increasingly so) characterized by consistent multi-tasking (email
processing and web surfing being the primary culprits) - greatly
decreases the likelihood of connecting with willing survey
participants. And when calls are connected with willing participants,
there is a decreased quality of the calls driven by the reduced/divided
attention spans of the participants for in-depth surveying.

Correspondingly, while email survey technologies (such as Zoomerang)
have dramatically reduced the cost of direct-to-target group surveying
- the very ease of email surveying utilization has naturally increased
the volume of email surveys being forwarded. While the raw number of
email surveys remains small relative to the overall percentage of
emails, the reality is that even email surveys targeted to an
appropriate (and anti-spam compliant) list more often than not get lost
amid the avalanche of email that confronts the typical email user.

For maximum effectiveness, Growthink suggests utilizing email and
telephone surveying in an integrated fashion. Quite simply, this means
emailing a survey (either as a simple text email or for collection
purposes - via many of the quality email survey technologies on the
market) to a desired survey participant and then following up on that
email survey via the telephone. Or vice versa. Growthinkís experience
is the best survey collections percentages come via either a) ìtalking
throughî an email survey with the participant over the telephone
(making the live phone connection and actually filling out the survey
for them as in traditional phone surveying) and/or repeated phone and
email queries requesting participation.

While this proactive data collection methodology needs to be
carefully monitored to control for skewing caused by the
persistence/sales skills/lack thereof of the data collectors, for most
micro/emerging market/customer data collection undertakings, this
combined phone/email ìtag teamî approach is the only methodology that
will lead to meaningful quantitative results.

As a guide, Growthink recommends that the standard number of 30
completed individual surveys considered to be a statistically
significant sample be increased to 50 to control for collection bias
resulting from the combined phone/email approach. Luckily, the leverage
gained from this methodology in terms of speed and cost savings when
compared to traditional methodologies (focus groups, pure telephone
surveying, etc.) is so great that even with this additional participant
requirement, the net time/cost savings of this methodology are
significant.

D. - yes agree with your point of course - the idea I was trying to communicate was that via utilizing this blended email/phone approach that a) is important to be aware of collection bias and b) to partially correct for it there is a need to expand sample size. Not possible to correct for it entirely of course (and in some circumstances expanding the sample size can increase collection bias), but a heightened awareness with this blended collection approach is needed.

Posted at 3:05 pm

D.Robinson says

If there is a bias related to the collection methodology, increasing the sample size from 30 to 50 will do nothing to address it.

Posted at 1:49 pm

Fran Coleman says

This was an interesting concept in business communicating. I see myself using this method.

Posted at 4:54 pm

misty says

i think the information i heard about was interesting in the small fact that such a topic is worried about as much as it is. When a telemarketer calls me i don't really think that deeply about what they are calling for. I usually just hang up at the first word they say. I think that over the phone surveys are important but i often times along with my parents don't have time to listen to the information they are giving. Plus it seems they call at the most inconvient times of the day. I'm usually so frustated about them calling that i don't consider what there saying to be important. Specially when its on my cell phone. I think a cell phone number should be left along by people other them those you know.

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the other hand, the entrepreneurs
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